Around 40 Iva residents joined the four candidates in the town council meeting chambers Tuesday night to watch the counting of the votes.

"The town spoke for itself and I am pleased with the results," said Gentry, the 47-year-old mayor who won a sixth term.

Powell thanked voters for their support. The 74-year-old former mayor has spent 16 years serving on the town council since the early 1980s.

"I am always happy to see it over with," said Powell after the final votes were counted. "I tried to run a good clean race."

In their campaigns, Gentry and Powell both focused on the construction of the Iva Farmers Market and other recent improvements that have been made in one of Anderson County's smallest towns.

Keith and Betty Richey both vowed to compete again in the next town election in two years. The couple, who are each 51, were making their first run for elected office.

"It was a learning experience," Keith Richey said.

Betty Richey said she was proud of the manner in which she campaigned.

"I would rather lose and have done it honestly than be a liar and win," she said.

As she climbed in a pickup with her husband to head home, Richey accused Gentry of spreading false rumors about financial ties between them and Iva merchant Henry Holley and his mother, Annette Holly.

The race between Gentry and Betty Richey had been punctuated by verbal sparring about her claims that the mayor ran a stop sign near a home while driving a golf cart, an allegation that Gentry flatly denied.

Last week Henry Holley reported to police that someone fired had a gunshot into his store, Iva Discount Cigarettes, after he posted a pair of signs criticizing Gentry on a billboard. No arrests have been made in the case, Iva Police Chief Thomas Miller said Tuesday night.

The town's election board will meet Thursday to certify the election results.

The other three town council members — Mary Forrester, Paul Hart and Kenneth Norwood — were re-elected without opposition.